============================= CFJ 3461 =============================
I voted PRESENT on proposal 7809.
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Caller: ais523
Judge: Alexis
Judgement: FALSE
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History:
Called by ais523: 15 Sep 2016
assigned to Alexis: 15 Sep 2016
Judged FALSE by Alexis: 17 Sep 2016
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Caller's Arguments:
As far as I can tell, the message I quoted above fulfils all the
requirements to be a ballot:
`) it was published;
a) it was submitted during the voting period (which started on August
20);
b) I was a player;
c) it clearly identifies an Agoran decision (i.e. a matter to be
decided)
d) it clearly identifies a valid option;
e) I did not publicly retract it;
f) I did not (as far as I'm aware) cast a ballot after it.
Of course, it's missing an element that's been heavily included by game
custom: it is /not/, either implicitly or explicitly, labelled as a
ballot (and in fact, it is written as though it isn't a ballot).
However, casting a ballot is, unlike most actions, not an action by
announcement; in particular, it doesn't require me to state the action
I'm performing. (I noticed this upon seeing an attempt by another
player to cast votes without an "I vote as follows:" prefix. That works
too, I think.)
I had attempted to vote (and most likely, successfully-at-the-time
voted) on the proposal earlier, but by rule 683f, the newly cast ballot
would invalidate the old one.
(Note that for most votes to be valid under this interpretation, we
need to identify a fragment of a message as a ballot, but this would be
consistent with common practice elsewhere, e.g. in ratifying reports.)
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Caller's Evidence:
On Tue, 2016-08-23 at 01:34 +0100, I wrote:
> On the Agoran Decision on whether to adopt distributed proposal 7809,
> PRESENT is a valid option.
The text of rule 683/21 is:
{{{
Voting on Agoran Decisions
An entity submits a ballot on an Agoran decision by publishing a
notice satisfying the following conditions:
(a) The ballot is submitted during the voting period for the
decision.
(b) The entity casting the ballot (the voter) was, at the
initiation of the decision, a player.
(c) The ballot clearly identifies the matter to be decided.
(d) The ballot clearly identifies a valid vote, as determined by
the voting method.
(e) The voter has not publicly retracted the ballot during the
voting period. ("Changing" a vote is equivalent to
retracting it and casting a vote with the new value.)
(f) It is the most recent of the voter's otherwise-valid
ballots.
}}}
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Judge's Arguments:
I agree with the caller's arguments that eir message quoted satisfies
each of the conditions listed in rule 683, and there appears to be no
arguments made to the contrary. The only argument submitted that the
ballot was ineffective was a vague reference to some precedent about
announcements, but a ballot is not made by announcement, so I find it
difficult to see how that would apply directly. Moreover, without a
reference to the case and its reasoning, the precedent is not useful.
The only remaining issue left unaddressed is whether the caller's
purported ballot in fact constituted a notice, as required by 683. If
it is not a notice, it cannot be a valid ballot.
The term "notice" is only used in the rules regarding ballots,
initiating Agoran Decisions, and dependent actions With Notice.
Dependent actions clearly define "With Notice" to have specialized
meaning that is clearly inapplicable in this case, so the only
remaining comparison available is in rule 107, Initiating Agoran
Decisions.
Of particular note, Rule 107 requires that a notice initiating an
Agoran decision "[set] forth the intent to initiate the decision."
This explicit requirement to indicate intent is contrasted to Rule 683,
which has no such requirement. It is a rule of interpretation that
when something is mentioned explicitly in one place, its omission in
another place means that it does not apply in the latter case. Thus,
no explicit statement of intent is required for a Rule 683 notice.
Without a more precise definition of "notice" available, and bearing
in mind that no explicit statement of intent is required, I thus
conclude that the caller's message indeed contained a notice for the
purposes of Rule 683, and therefore the statement of the case is true.
The final issue of the case is to assign a valid judgement to the CFJ.
My options, per rule 591, are TRUE, FALSE, and DISMISS. DISMISS is not
appropriate in the circumstances, based on the facts of the case at
the time the CFJ was initiated and the text of rule 591, but the rules
otherwise provide no guidance as to preferring TRUE over FALSE. Thus,
I judge this CFJ FALSE.
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